Momo, Do You Dream Of Hungry Eskimos?
by Abraxas Qlippoth
Summary: What if animals were more like people than we think? What if they had forbidden love affairs? What if they had fetishes? One night Sokka discovers a very disturbing side to Momo and Appa's relationship.


Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

**"Momo, Do You Dream Of Hungry Eskimos?"** by **Abraxas** 2009-03-16

It's play. A game. I need to remember that it's innocent. It doesn't matter what I saw. It doesn't matter what I think I saw, I guess, what I imagine I saw. I need to remember that it's only just natural between lemur and bison.

Well - that's what Aang says and that's what I'm believing.

Of course, Aang, he's got to know what he's talking about. Am I right? He lived with the lemur and the bison. He's got to know, I mean, living with those two all of his life, he's got to know what their play is like. Yeah? Even though he didn't see, exactly, what I saw - mostly, because I can't bring myself to describe it face to face with the Avatar - that, that whatever it was, that happened with Momo and Appa.

It was part of the game!

Yeah, wow, I need to relax. Calm down a bit. Why am I so scared to death of it? What am I so panicked about? Maybe I just don't get it - or - well, what if Appa gets tired of little, scrawny lemurs and wants to play with not so little, yet still scrawny Eskimos? Oh, my, god! He and his fluids always splattering against me. Now, that I think about it, there's such a weird creepy attachment already. And I know he wants a little roughhouse payback for those flights with Yue.

Appa, Appa, Appa, I thought we were friends! I guess, er, you must think we are but not like those sorts of friends! It takes very, very special friends let me tell you.

I need to keep a distance as much as possible. Draw the line at grooming. Boundaries! Yeah, that's what this friendship requires. Boundaries.

In the daytime, I'm not worried, aren't too many places where a magical, ten ton monster can do that and get away with it. Nighttime - yeah, now, that fills me with dread! The prospect of being in camp, with all of the lights off, with all of the people sleeping, it's got to be too tempting to resist. It's such a perfect opportunity! Think of the excuses that could be offered to explain what everybody would have assumed was Appa's sleep flying whatever accident.

Oh, my gods, just the thought of being put into that position is so revolting that I can't sleep anymore.

But Aang says it's a game between lemur and bison and it'd better stay that way - yeah! And what kind of game is it, anyway? Aang can't possibly know what he's talking about. He's way too busy training to be the Avatar to see it.

I noticed it!

Instincts - that's how I knew something was wrong. Momo and Appa fight like cats and dogs all of the time. It's so common nobody remembers a time when it didn't happen. One day I realized there had been a transformation of their routine. The fights were about the usual trivial food issues as always but now there was this new extra added intensity. Especially with Momo getting more vocal and Appa getting more scared. I guess if you didn't notice the little detail things like that these sorts of changes would have escaped you.

That wasn't everything. The real clue that something was wrong came after the fights. Momo and Appa became so strangely tender and affectionate after their spars. The lemur would be grooming the beast and the bison would be licking the monkey about everywhere. Everywhere! Excessively.

I admit I was curious. You need to understand that I'm just the boomerang guy. I don't have these spiritual, exotic ass bending ability or whatever they call it. So I'm always left out of the gang's training and bonding sessions. I need to entertain myself someway, somehow, and the drama that is the whole Momo/Appa 'ship is too great a source of amusement. And, of course, I found these passionate make up sessions, well, a bit on the strange side of the spectrum.

I began to wonder - and I mean seriously wonder - if those two were secretly engaged within a relationship. I mean a real, lovey dovey, romantic relationship. Yes, I know it sounds like a very bizarre thing to think about. Well, I donno, maybe I went too long without meaningful human contact. Hear me out, please - it makes sense as soon as you take that leap off of its insanity.

It's perfectly natural that animals form strong mating bonds with each other. It's what they do, usually, with others of their kind. What if, maybe, they turn those affections toward others outside of their species? Think about it - we, humans, invented the idea of species. Animals notice differences - do they go as far as we do? - I doubt it.

I know stories about arctic snow tigers. It's usually a female falling in love with a warrior. They hunt together, eat together, eventually, tent together. The warrior takes up more and more tiger like qualities. Sometimes they vanish into the wilderness. Though - more often than not - the stories end sadly. Sort of like tragedy. Before any kind of mating happens, the cat dies and the man, racked with guilt, takes the fur. I like it when, even as fur, the tiger continues to love the man.

Hm, OK, well those are my hapless romantic tendencies. Anyway, my point is that even in legends there must be grains of truth so animals have been known to show affection with others outside of their species.

And why can't that affection lead toward the possibility of a mating pair forming. Even if there can't be offspring. What if a lemur and a bison find each other by a twist of fate? I mean, there are no other Appas and we haven't seen a lot of Momos.

But if this is love then it's a very sick and perverted kind of love. I cannot imagine it. I don't want to think about it...yet.

I know people like to do strange and bizarre things when others aren't watching. When we stayed at Ba Sing Se, and we searched for Appa, I wandered into a less than reputable business that catered to a slew of fetishes. Wow, people, especially people you wouldn't suspect, are way into nasty and dirty things.

Why can't it be true with animals?

I mean, according to legends that everybody believes, people learned how to bend elements by observing the animals. What if it's always a two way street? They take as much from us as we take from them? Then it's natural that animals would have developed crazy fetish ideas.

It was morning and I was a little worried because I couldn't find Momo. The rest of the group was bending by the river and were too busy to notice. Even the bison was eating grass and seemed to be too distracted to care about the fate of the lemur.

Momo was nowhere to be seen I got lonely - there wasn't anybody to talk to - so I searched throughout the campsite.

I noticed a bush was shaking.

Thinking maybe it was meat I stalked and pounced atop it when it least expected it!

I was shocked by the smell coming out of that bush. It was so awful I feared I landed inside of a pile of Appa's fresh chucked turd. I feared it exploded over my clothes and I knew Katara would not let me forget it if she washed my laundry again. Then Momo jumped out of the shrub - the little guy stood within the grass - it shook off the shock of it.

The smell - good gods - it was coming off of Momo!

I apologized profusely. I was thinking I caught the lemur while it was doing its business. But that smell, good lords, that smell. A creature that small couldn't make a smell that big unless it was dying. Then, as it jolted into the water, I saw that its fur was sprinkled with long, green leaves.

I asked Aang about the lemur and the bison - and what their relationship was supposed to be like. I didn't know - alone suspect - what they were doing behind the scenes. I said they were acting strange and that maybe Momo accidently stepped into a pile of turd.

How that was possible, well, I couldn't figure. Except, maybe, if it wasn't accidently. Maybe Momo was full of fetishes too.

According to Aang the bison were the first to bend air - it's their arrows that the monks mimicked through their tattooing. The lemur is different, though, they don't bend air. They work sort of like birds flying by physical, mechanical means. Nobody knew what motivated the lemur/bison relationship even if there were a relationship. They were often together; otherwise, they lived inside of their own individual worlds. With their rules. Humans were not privy to the knowledge of their workings. Their secrets! The best we were able to do was watch as their lives unfolded.

I agree that Aang's information was usually true. That animals lived in their own world and people weren't always able to understand it. Only later did I realize how totally, absolutely true that bit of wisdom was.

Because, even after I saw what I saw and know what I know, I cannot believe it. Let alone understand it. It's beyond description. You'd say I was crazy just to speak of it. It couldn't be true! Why would it be true? How could it be true?

Of course I was wrong; I couldn't have seen what I thought I saw. I must have been mistaking it. It's one of those things, you know, if you step into a scene in the middle of the action and you don't know what happened before you poked your head into it. You certainly don't know the context of why things like that are happening like that. But, still, under what context was it normal?

What kind of game involved activities like that?

I just can't see a bunch of monks sitting and watching that and saying it was OK. Unless there's something about air bending monks that Aang isn't telling us. Jeez - layers and layers of fetishism?

I was baffled.

What could it be, this thing...between them.

I started to theorize. Momo and Appa - they were two souls bonded by love. Hey, now, let's be frank, there's nothing wrong with it. If a lemur and a bison want to live together as some kind of husband and husband arrangement, thing, that's not my business. Actually, to be completely honest, none of this stuff is my business. Except I was too bored to keep to myself. Too bored with too much time. And this mystery was just too damned juicy not to investigate.

So the thought came to me - what if they tried to mate?

I know I shouldn't entertain a thought like that. I mean, yeah, who goes around wondering if animals (or people!) are mating when nobody's watching. It happens, I know, and it's not something to be amused by - er - unless I'm beset by fetishes I don't know and can't understand!

How tainted is this universe?

What was I going to get out of it, anyway?

I wanted the answer to a question I could not utter.

Whether I was repulsed by it or aroused by it, the thought was there and could not be denied - I needed to know.

If they were lovers then there would have to be - physical - traces of intimacy.

Anyway, I couldn't just ask them, of course. If I wanted that proof then I needed to gather it myself. I formulated this plan. I decided to stay up at night. Yes, at night, because if there was mating, it couldn't be happening in the middle of the day. Everyone would have noticed it. Everybody was awake and would have seen it and stuff. Also, we tended to travel by daylight so doing it then would have been impossible.

For days and days I stayed up late into the night. We weren't followed and I think those two realized it too. They were more relaxed than anxious. Now, about my vigil, nothing seemed to be happening and I felt stupid that I wasting my time. Then, just when I was about to quit, there was a breakthrough that breathed life into my operation. Something was happening! Something. I heard it, then, I saw it: activity at the edge of the camp.

I suppose that if you didn't investigate it that it certainly looked like a game. Like play. But it wasn't enough and it couldn't be enough until I uncovered the object of it.

Without getting out of my blanket, without hinting that I had been stirred by their disturbance, I simply shifted about. I tossed and turned a little. I pretended to go back to sleep. Meanwhile I gazed through my nearly shut lids and I couldn't believe what I was seeing! So much so that I wondered later if maybe I dreamt what I was watching. It was such a surreal vision - and a thoroughly shocking event - that it could have been mistaken as a trip of desert cactus juice.

Yet it was true. It happened! I checked the fields personally, intimately that morning. The signs of its actuality were there exactly as I recalled it.

I was left to conclude the following revelation - it looked like Appa was trying to sit atop Momo.

Yes, imagine that, a ten ton magical monster attempting to sit atop a monkey. A tiny, scrawny monkey, that kept flapping from bush to bush, attempting to evade the weight of that butt. Every time Appa thought he cornered the lemur the bison dropped onto its two back legs and sort of wiggled its tail against the ground. And every time Momo jumped out of the way. This continued, well, I don't know how long it continued. I was overwhelmed by sleep while the activity was still ongoing.

And it was happening silently, too, which was the most shocking part of it. It was silent, all of it, its each and every moment.

Except when Appa was sitting. The rustling of the bushes could not be silenced. Still, neither Momo nor Appa uttered a sound.

A lemur jostling about. A bison rubbing its butt from shrub to shrub. And not a single uttered vocalization!

Now, reasonable guy that I am, I tried to excuse it. It wasn't what I thought I saw. Sure, it looked like Appa was trying to sit atop Momo. But, really, Appa must have known it wasn't going to happen. And why was Momo going to agree to be sat on that way? If they were a mating pair, as I suspected they were, sure there must have been something about it that each looked forward to. What was Appa going to feel from sitting atop a lemur? What kind of warped suicidal tendency was Momo going to appease by being sat on by a bison?

Aang's idea that it was a game came back but it didn't make any kind of sense. It seemed to be more than a game. First, why do it at night if it was innocent? Second, why do it without vocalization? Those two were always going after each other's throats and making no secret of it. Why be so hush hush about it all of a sudden? Especially if a life could be in danger.

Unless they didn't want us to know about it!

While it, frankly, scared me, I was again overwhelmed by curiosity. I was determined to uncover what were the purposes of those silent nightly encountered between them. I needed stealth, too, and I needed to find a way to stay awake. The problem was that I kept dozing off just when the activity was reaching its climax. I was missing the point of it. Whatever it could be.

The night I made that discovery - the visage that torments my mind into this very moment - that night I was careful about the way I pretended to sleep. I didn't come out of it fully, as I always attempted to earlier, rather I let myself linger between waking and sleeping. It was uneasy, that balance, my nerves were so raw I was shocked by each and every sound. My curiosity and my drive to know mixed with a sense of doom that kept rousing me out of my dream.

The on and off activity continued throughout that sitting and evading game.

Soon the campsite was quiet. I knew the game was finished and if I just opened my eyes I would be witness to whatever it was that followed the 'foreplay'. I was disappointed to find nothing. Appa wasn't going around sitting from bush to bush. Momo wasn't jumping everywhere. Actually, I couldn't find Momo, I assumed the lemur retreated into a tree and that ended the ritual.

But there was something wrong with the way Appa was walking.

Still in my sleeping bag, wrapped in my blanket, and still feigning sleep, I watched as the beast moved shakily along its six massive legs. It was like the kind of uneasy, 'drunk' gait you expect of an animal that's already half asleep. The problem was that Appa didn't look sleepy. Indeed, he seemed to be rather animated.

His mouth was open like a grimace as he walked toward the river. His eyes were rolling. His lids seemed to be swelling with tear. It looked like he wanted to cry but was forcing it back just to be quiet.

Stunned by this - my interpretation of events which I admit could have been tainted by drowsiness - I crawled out of the blankets on hands and knees and followed Appa toward the edge of the river.

Hiding within the safety of the undergrowth, I was awake and my eyes were flooded by the visuals of a strange, eerie reality, streaming into my mind as it was coming into existence. I noticed Appa's genitals were extended beyond natural. That was the strongest clue yet about the nature of their relationship - and it way almost enough to break my brain. Clearly, it was more than a game, I mean...the bison was aroused, its gargantuan sexual display couldn't be denied. It was swollen and leaking. I wondered if its frustration was caused by its inability to mate, physically, with Momo.

And then, oh, my, gods, I learned just how wrong I was. About everything. Oh, terribly, horribly wrong! Jeez, I can't get that image out of my head! The reality of it - that it was truly, actually happening in front of my face. Am I doomed to see it, again and again, in all of its warped and demented color, forever? Why didn't I just leave well enough alone? Why couldn't I just fall asleep like always? Why am I cursed with this mind and its need to know?

You don't understand. The sight of it. Gods, the smell of it. These aren't things that leave you! It's so unthinkable and unnatural. Who thought of it? Did it start as an accident and quickly become a game between them? And, again, I wondered what did Appa get out of it? Good lords almighty - what did Momo get out of it?

It must have been something - or - it wouldn't be happening.

Appa raised its tail and cut the loudest, stinkiest, breeziest burst of gas I experienced. My eyes watered and I verged into fainting. I could have gagged right then and there and blown my cover - as well as chunks! I thought I was going to be further disgusted by watching, up front and personal, the beast doing its business. I mean its legs were wide, its tail was up, its butt was shaking. All of that meant one thing was going to happen.

Yet, as I was about to turn away, I caught one last glimpse and I paused. Frozen by shock. Instead of a turd dumping out of its butt - it was Momo's arm! Then the other arm poked out of that entrance. The hands grasped the puckered lip like flesh and widened it enough to allow a head out of that cavity. Legs followed and, with another hiss of air, the lemur tumbled onto the rocks.

Then, gods, while I was petrified and about to wet my pants, Appa turned and gave Momo one long wet sloppy lick.

I don't remember what happened afterward. My mind was so blown by the visual of that game that the rest of the night was a total blur. Someway, somehow, I got back into my sleeping bag and, again, one way or another I actually slept. My dreams were not tainted - thank the gods - but a good night's rest like that continues to elude me. I may be unable to sleep outdoors, alone again.

I can't help but wonder if they suspect that I know. Momo doesn't seem to care if I do. I doubt there's anything like a sense of shame as far as the lemur is concerned. But Appa! The bison looks at me funny. Like he knows I know something. I fear it. I feed him more food than usual and I groom him more thoroughly than required to placate him. Yet the sense of dread I feel persists.

If animals were adopting fetishes sicker and even more perverted than what humans were doing then there must be other, deep and dark secrets. What else are they hiding? What else do they do - plan to do - scheme and plot to do - while we're not looking?

Dam it - I never should have taken Katara fishing!

**END**


End file.
